For a long time, people only drank black coffee — a classic Arabic recipe with added sugar or honey. Sweeteners made the drink’s overly strong taste more pleasant, but it was still difficult to drink.
So Dr. Monin (the creator of the syrups of the same name) decided to experiment and, knowing the healing properties of animal milk, decided to dilute the coffee drink. In his opinion, the recipe stopped coughing and helped him to recover faster.
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Best Plant Milk for Cappuccino
Nowadays, you won’t surprise anyone with names of drinks like “latte”, “flat white” or “raf”, but an alternative that is added instead of cow’s milk is quite possible. The stereotype that cappuccino without animal milk is “oh so difficult” to make is gradually disappearing because producers of green drinks pay special attention to the composition for the sake of good foam and release lines under the code name “Barista“.
Which plant milk is best for coffee
Usually, in coffee shops, they prepare it with coconut, oat, banana, and soy milk; a little less often with almond and oat. For lovers and adherents of nutty aftertaste – with hazelnut or cashew.
- Coconut and banana are well whipped into a foam but are more suitable for those who like sweet drinks. And in the composition of coconut and banana milk, Vell, due to fermentation and ingredients, you will not find sugar at all.
- Soy milk has a fairly neutral taste and is more difficult to heat to the right temperature. It definitely shouldn’t be overheated when whipping because it can curdle, so choose the optimal temperature (50–55 C).
- Almond milk, like soy milk, can separate. Including if you pour milk into a highly acidic espresso. That’s why knowledgeable baristas often whip plant milk together with espresso to create a fluffy foam.
- Oat milk is the easiest to work with – it’s easy to whip up and also great to draw on. You can check out some latte art for fun.
- We highly recommend trying coffee based on hazelnuts and cashews if you want a rich nutty flavor and a thick consistency. Not for every day, but worth the experiment. The salty taste of hazelnuts in the foam is especially great.
Which plant milk makes delicious coffee?
When choosing an alternative for coffee, look at the composition – additives vary greatly.
An unspoken rule when working with an alternative is to choose a less acidic grain, for example, from South America, so that the body* is light. An exception to the rule is coconut milk, which, due to its sweetness, comes out best with a denser espresso taste and gives an ideal combination.
(Body* is the coffee aftertaste that remains on the tongue when you sip coffee. But this is one of those characteristics that is more often used by professionals. If we apply this terminology to milk drinks, it turns out that low-fat milk has a light body, but cream has a very dense one.)
How to froth plant milk well for cappuccino
Another question: “How to froth milk at home with foam like from a coffee shop?” There are several options, from a coffee machine to a French press. The first option is pretty clear, but there are a few nuances.
First: Hold the pitcher and the cappuccino maker spout at an angle of 45 degrees or rotate it 360 degrees (whichever is more convenient).
Second: do not immerse the spout too deeply, and do not overheat the milk. You can understand this by the temperature of the pitcher – it should not burn your palm.
Third: After frothing the milk, tap the bottom of the pitcher on the table to remove excess bubbles. Then, pour the milk into a glass of espresso.
Fourth: As written earlier, it is better to froth almond and soy milk immediately with a shot of espresso.
How to froth plant-based milk in a hand-held frother or French press
If you don’t have a coffee machine at home but want coffee, you can order the simplest manual cappuccino maker. The technology for making it is the same, but it will take a little more time and preheated milk (approximately 50-65 degrees).
Perhaps the funniest way to make foam is to whip it in a French press. To do this, simply pour 300 ml of heated milk inside and whip the milk to the desired consistency with quick movements of the piston.
How to Make Latte Art with Plant Milk Foam
If you want something just like in a coffee shop, you can experiment with latte art and draw hearts, flowers, and swans on the foam of plant milk – it is also capable of this. You can learn from diagrams or videos from YouTube, and we will show you the most basic one so that you can try drawing on your morning cup of coffee.
Placing — As the name suggests, the main task is to “put” the milk foam on the espresso. The movements should be soft and smooth so that the foam remains on the surface. So, the technology:
- Take the frothed milk and position the pitcher spout at a height of literally 1 cm.
- Tilt the cup at 45 degrees so that the milk initially pours in at an angle. Do not lift or lower the pitcher under any circumstances – pour the milk smoothly in one motion.
- Leave 20 milliliters of milk for the last step. Now we will make a heart or as it is also called, a “tulip”.
- To do this, we need to “move” the pitcher forward a little from one side of the cup to the other to completely “cut” through the dense milk circle that has formed in the cup.
- Done, your first cappuccino with a heart! By the way, this is already the second technique, which is called “pushing”. There are 6 of them, so mastering the basics of latte art is not that difficult.
As you can see, almost any coffee drink can be prepared using plant milk, and the scope for experiments depends only on your taste.
